Utility Week

20 | 15TH - 21ST NOVEMBER 2019 | UTILITY WEEK Operations & Assets Analysis R egulator Ofwat has set a minimum leakage reduction target of 15 per cent for water companies during the next asset management period, AMP7. Yet of the 17 company dra• determinations pub- lished, seven set themselves tougher targets than this. Thames Water and Yorkshire Water share the steepest reduction goals at 25 per cent apiece for the five-year period, which ends on 31 March 2025. These are tough targets for all companies and the race is on to drive down leakage as low as possible by the end of the current AMP6 cycle, on 31 March 2020. Water companies are pedalling hard in the short term to hit their 2019/20 targets and keeping a watchful eye on the longer-term business plan. The most effective short-term strategy is to increase manpower to find and fix leaks. Another is asking staff and customers to report leaks. Beyond these, new detection technolo- gies have a role to play: • Mobile and fixed acoustic loggers can pin- point leaks by measuring noise of water escaping. • Drones can help find vegetation above ground where leaks occur. • Some companies have bought data from satellite imaging technologists Utilis that can detect leaks underground. • Dogs trained to sniff out chlorine have proven reliable, if unscalable, leak detectors. But longer term, and if the industry is to meet its average 17 per cent leakage reduc- tion target for 2020-25, companies will need to develop their systems capabilities. For certain utilities, such as Thames Water, about a third of whose network is more than 120 years old, it will also require capital investment. Its plans to replace old mains have been coldly received by a regula- tor that would prefer to keep customer bills down. "We need to increase investment in replacing old assets. And customers want us to. We are working with the regulator to help support that," says Tim McMahon, head of networks at Thames Water. Strategies for tackling leakage In this excerpt from a Utility Week premium leakage report, we look at what three companies are doing to tackle leakage. Liz Bury reports. Seven out of 17 water companies aim to cut leakage by more than 15% in AMP7 Company Draft determination leakage reduction targets 2020-25 (%) Affinity Water 20 Anglian Water (Hartlepool) 17 Bristol Water 15 DWR Cymru 15 Hafren Dyfrdwy 15 Northumbrian Water (Essex & Suffolk) 15 Portsmouth Water 20 SES Water 15 Severn Trent Water 15 South Staffs (Cambridge) 23 South West Water 15 Southern Water 15 Thames Water 25 United Utilities 20 Wessex Water 15 Yorkshire Water 25 Northumbrian Water Group: data analysis and innovation Northumbrian Water Group comprises Northumbrian Water in the North East and Essex & Suffolk Water in the South East; utilities with diametrically opposite chal- lenges on leakage. Essex & Suffolk serves one of the UK's most water- stressed regions and suffers leaks during summer. Northumbrian gets more leaks during harsh northeast- erly winters. Leakage was a low priority in Northumbria historically because water was plentiful and the group therefore has higher leakage levels in the north. An early adopter of metering, it manages district metered areas through a system providing information on minimum night flows for each district meter area (DMA). This was sufficient until the freeze-thaw a•er February 2018, which led to high levels of leakage going into 2018/19 and was followed by one of the driest sum- mers for almost 100 years. "We had to do things dramatically differently," says Martin Lunn, head of technical strategy and support. To become more innovative in find-and-fix, it added manpower, invested in static acoustic loggers and mobile loggers, and set up reporting portals. In some areas of Essex & Suffolk noise loggers were less effective. It used drones to identify vegetation where leaks occur and satellite imagery to detect patches of drinking water underground. Northumbrian also hosts Innovation Festivals. The third involved a "hackathon" with coders given access to the group's leakage data. They developed a program highlighting areas of a DMA most likely to develop leaks.

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